Showing papers in "Parkinsonism & Related Disorders in 2012"

TL;DR: Recent data indicate that glucocorticoid receptors are important in curtailing microglial reactivity, and deregulation in their activity in PD could lead to sustained inflammation-mediated degeneration.

TL;DR: In this article, the authors performed a meta-analysis to estimate the prevalence of oropharyngeal dysphagia in Parkinson's patients, using subjective outcomes and objective measures.

TL;DR: Overall, MbM-therapy appears promising for the improvement of gait and gait-related activities in PD, and future studies should incorporate larger groups and focus on long-term compliance and follow-up.

TL;DR: The findings suggest that a resting-state functional connectivity disruption of "executive-attention" and visual neural networks may be associated with the development of freezing of gait in patients with Parkinson's disease.

TL;DR: Future therapeutic designs must take into account the multifactorial nature of PD, including the varied roles of the adaptive and innate immune responses, which are likely responsible for furthering disease pathology and DA neuron degeneration through the release of harmful substances.

TL;DR: The present meta-analysis confirmed high sensitivity and specificity of (123)I-MIBG myocardial scintigraphy for differentiating PD from other neurodegenerative parkinsonism in both early and delayed imaging phases and was highly effective for distinguishing early PD.

TL;DR: The role of oral anti-hyperglycemic agents (OAA) in any diabetes-PD linkage was evaluated and incident PD risk in T2DM increases 2.2-fold, which is avoided by combination with metformin.

TL;DR: The most efficient way to objectively ascertain Freezing of gait (FOG) is asking patients to repeatedly make rapid 360° narrow turns from standstill, on the spot and in both directions.

TL;DR: Short-term and long-term successful outcomes were documented in the treatment of patients with functional movement disorders by a rehabilitative, goal-oriented program with intense physical and occupational therapy, suggesting substantial efficacy should be further assessed in a prospective, controlled, clinical trial.

TL;DR: It is concluded that while gastric emptying has been reported to be frequently delayed in PD, the existing data do not permit definitive conclusions concerning its true prevalence, relationship to the underlying disease process, relevance to PD management, or the optimal therapy of related GI symptoms.

TL;DR: The most popular neurotoxin animal models, 6-hydroxydopamine and MPTP are discussed as one school of thought believes that PD is the result of a toxic insult.

TL;DR: It is expected that other monogenic forms of parkinsonism will be identified in the future, as mutations in the above-mentioned genes are not found in other patients with similar phenotypes.

TL;DR: Impaired olfaction, constipation, slow reaction time, excessive daytime sleepiness, and impaired executive function were all associated with future development of PD and/or with increased likelihood of either incidental Lewy bodies or neuronal loss in the SN or LC.

TL;DR: A meta-analysis of cohort studies on BMI in Parkinson's disease found that patients with Hoehn and Yahr stage 3 had a lower BMI than patients with stage 2, and disease duration was not associated with BMI.

TL;DR: The role of the most relevant associated genes and risk factors in sporadic PD are discussed and heterozygous mutations in GBA have now been well-validated as susceptibility factors for PD.

TL;DR: In this pilot study, both acupuncture and bee venom acupuncture showed promising results as adjuvant therapies for Parkinson's disease.

TL;DR: It is shown that α-synuclein directly activates microglia inciting the production of proinflammatory molecules and altering the expression of Toll-like receptors (TLRs) in PD and the therapeutic potential of modifying this response.

TL;DR: ESAS-PD is a quick, effective scale for assessment of late stage Parkinson disease symptoms that is sensitive to intervention, and therefore have potential clinical utility for physicians and other healthcare providers.

TL;DR: It is reported that both R and S enantiomers of fluoxetine attenuated chronic neurodegeneration induced by a common inflammogen lipopolysaccharide (LPS) and a neurotoxin 1-methyl-4-phenylpyridinium (MPP(+)).

TL;DR: For many non-motor manifestations Non Motor Symptoms Questionnaire is an effective screen; however, for manifestations such as somnolence, olfactory loss and apathy, sensitivity is suboptimal.

TL;DR: Although Istradefylline did not impact OFF time duration, it significantly improved motor score at 40 mg/day.

TL;DR: Clinicians should be aware of factors associated with medication non-adherence in Parkinson's disease and targeted interventions should be developed and investigated to establish if addressing factor associated with non- adherence in PD leads to greater medication adherence.

TL;DR: Depressive symptoms were statistically the most important factor in explaining variance in impulse control disorder risk, even more than sex, age, age of disease onset, alcohol use, or medication.

TL;DR: Analysis of cellular behavior in theThalamus shows that the thalamus is not the generator of tremor, and new data suggest that the basal ganglia trigger a cerebellar circuit to produce the tremor.

TL;DR: One session of balance training in PD using a biofeedback system showed beneficial effects on trunk stability, and additional research should examine if these effects increase further after more intensive training, how long these persist after training has stopped, and if the observed effects carry over to non-trained tasks.

TL;DR: The results suggest the need to re-evaluate the utility of questionnaires in the assessment of freezing of gait and highlight the need for accurate objective methods of identifying freezing events when assessing future clinical interventions aimed at reducing this potentially disabling symptom of Parkinson's disease.

TL;DR: The available evidence is sufficient to support the notion that Essential Tremor can no longer be considered as a pure motor disorder and further studies of these non-motor aspects will go a long way in understanding and comprehensively treating ET.

TL;DR: It is concluded that PC loss is neither a pathological basis for, nor the distinctive feature of ET, and Cerebellar PC loss does not distinguish ET from controls.

TL;DR: The results demonstrate the viability of objective measures of freezing, and that percent time frozen is a more reliable metric of severity than number of freezing events for both clinical and objective measures.

TL;DR: Allowing for the small number of studies in the meta-analysis, the results showed high diagnostic accuracy of DaTSCAN in DLB diagnosis, especially in terms of specificity.